PORT HUENEME, Calif. –
Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division (NSWC PHD)’s inaugural Rust-A-Thon competition to find coating solutions for the Navy’s combat system corrosion issue will attack the challenge in its second round with new partners, judges, testing methods and products—and will go national as well.
NSWC PHD Lead Materials Engineer Armen Kvryan along with Materials Engineer Zachary Stephens and local organizations including the command’s Fathomwerx Lab, Camarillo, California-based Matter Labs and NSWC Carderock Division in Maryland, have announced the results from the corrosion-focused competition called Rust-A-Thon, which, starting in fall 2020, tested more than 10 coatings for their ability to resist corrosion and that ultimately could be used on different parts of ships. In addition, engineers are testing how the applications perform against what’s expected from a coating system.
While the results didn't reveal any product to be the single solution to PHD’s corrosion needs, the outcome did show the coatings performed well when tested in non-ship environments, according to Kvryan.
“We didn’t have a winner per se, but more so, we tested these coatings in different environments to see if we needed to apply these coatings in certain ways and then how they would perform,” Kvryan explained. “We realized that almost all of the coatings we tested did particularly well when exposed in a marine environment that was covered from direct sunlight and was in a sheltered environment—a warehouse setting,” he said, as a first step toward simulating the harsher conditions naval ships are regularly in.
Findings based on the first competition are dictating the guidelines for the second competition, as they will help researchers narrow down a potential coating for the Navy but also consider aspects such as the ease or difficulty of maintaining the coating product.
“One of the most overlooked aspects of these corrosion prevention coatings is their maintenance,” Kvryan said. “So, moving forward into the next competition, one of the key aspects we will test is not only durability of the coating but also its maintenance routine such as, if it scratches off, how easy is it to fix? These Sailors are very busy, and the last thing they need is more maintenance or more work.”
Another lesson learned from the inaugural competition, Kvryan added, is that the Navy’s corrosion issue is complex, and one product will not solve it.
“A significant point we learned from this competition is that a one-size-fits-all type of coating doesn't work, and we need to work with the vendors and research groups to make sure that we get a customized formulation to solve our unique needs,” Kvryan explained.
Bryan Went, Matter Labs chief executive officer, agrees with Kvryan that the competition can be a catalyst for companies to start thinking about how the Navy can use their products.
“I think the community has a better understanding of what the issues are and how they can think of their products,” Went explained. “The solution is about more than (just) creating a new coating but how it’s going to be applied. For example, we had some products that performed great as a preventative coating but they had to be baked in an oven to be applied, so the manufacturers need to think about the product, exposure to the problem and the specific needs. That is the start of getting a better solution down the road.”
Another valuable lesson Kvryan said stood out as a result of the competition is the importance of testing products in real-world environments versus laboratory testing.
“One fact that we learned is testing in the actual environment is valuable, and we need to conduct laboratory testing (in the second competition) in conjunction with tests representing the actual environment, such as the two atmospheric exposure tests we performed in the first competition," Kvryan said.
In the next competition, Kvryan plans to change the underlying metal composition used to test the coatings.
“The reason for this change is to more accurately represent in the test where the coating system would go on the ship," Kvryan said. “Also, to gain more information on these coating systems once applied to different metals and to depict the application we are interested in more accurately. We will be using a material with a known corrosion issue so we could understand how the coatings we’re testing react to that specific metal."
Also new for the second competition is more partners, judges, testing methods and products. Some of the participants that will aid in testing and judging will include the NASA Kennedy Space Center, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Denver, Colorado, university professors, Naval Air Systems Command, Naval Research Laboratory and other warfare centers. Went is expecting 15 or more participants to submit their products for testing.
“The big change for 2021's competition is we're incorporating more partners into the testing, which will get more people looking at the problem and the solution,” Went said. “It also opens up our testing capabilities, so it expands the competition to make it more national than just local, which is a great thing.”
The next Rust-A-Thon competition will open on May 1, according to Kvryan. For more competition information, email team@fathomwerx.com.